Philander Smith was an American real estate agent and philanthropist. Philander Smith College

Philander Smith College

Philander Smith College is a private, historically black college that is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It is located in Little Rock, Arkansas. The student body averages around 850 attendees, with around 30% of that figure attending part time. Although known historically as a school...

 is his namesake.

Biography

Philander Smith was the son of David Smith, whose 1801 sawmill in upstate New York gave name to the village of Smith’s Mills before it became Adams, New York

Adams

-Places:The Moon*Adams New Zealand*Adams River, New ZealandPhilippines*Adams, Ilocos NorteUnited States*Adams, California*Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California*Adams, Decatur County, Indiana*Adams, Morgan County, Indiana...

 (after ex-president John Adams

John Adams

John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...

) in 1802.
Among the early settlers at Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...

, Smith and wife Adeline provided financial assistance to Methodist

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

 missions in India

Methodist Church in India

Methodist Church in India is a Methodist Christian denomination of India. Its seat is in Mumbai. The Church of South India and the Church of North India are the results of mergers involving Methodist Churches. It has hundreds of thousands of members...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. His widow Adeline continued to give away his $125,000 fortune to a number of causes for a dozen years after his 1882 death. Her gift that year to the Methodists’ Walden Seminary in Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...

 resulted in its immediate renaming as Philander Smith College

Philander Smith College

Philander Smith College is a private, historically black college that is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It is located in Little Rock, Arkansas. The student body averages around 850 attendees, with around 30% of that figure attending part time. Although known historically as a school...

.

Legacy

• In 2003, the Historical Association of South Jefferson [County] moved into the former Philander Smith House at 29 East Church Street in Adams, New York.
• After the 1866 marriage of daughter Sarah, Mr. Smith was the father-in-law of famous Christian Zionist
  Christian Zionism
  Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. It overlaps with, but is distinct from, the nineteenth century movement for the Restoration of the Jews...
  
   William Eugene Blackstone
  William Eugene Blackstone
  William Eugene Blackstone was an American evangelist and Christian Zionist. he was the author of the proto- Zionist Blackstone Memorial of 1891. Blackstone was influenced by Dwight Lyman Moody, James H...
  
  .

External links

• Adams (New York) History and Genealogy (http://adamsny.net/adamsnyoldhouses.html)
• Philander Smith gravesite (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=smith&GSfn=philander+&GSbyrel=in&GSdy=1882&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=56947928&df=all&)